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Physics Students Devise Concept For Star Wars-Style Deflector Shields
mpicpp (3454017) writes in with good news for everyone worrying about the strength of their shields. "If you have often imagined yourself piloting your X-Wing fighter on an attack run on the Death Star, you'll be reassured that University of Leicester students have demonstrated that your shields could take whatever the Imperial fleet can throw at you. The only drawback is that you won't be able to see a thing outside of your starfighter. In anticipation of Star Wars Day on 4 May, three fourth-year Physics students at the University have proven that shields, such as those seen protecting spaceships in the Star Wars film series, would not only be scientifically feasible, they have also shown that the science behind the principle is already used here on Earth."
Larry Niven will be glad to know that since he used opaque shields in "The Mote in God's Eye"
Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro
lol, obvious troll is obvious.
"forcefields" have been a staple of pulp scifi and space opera since space opera was first born. Try something like flash gordon, AC.
Personally though, I suspect that getting a magnetic feild itself to behave as a metamaterial would be very effective in blocking coherent light beams, and probably with less power. It is important to note that magnetic field lines are themselves propagated using the same force carrier as the coherent light beam, since both are manifestations of electromagnetic energy.
You dont need to block the incoming light beam, you just need to alter the beam frequency spread so that it stops being coherent and thus disperse it before it can come into contact with the outer surface of the ship. if the shield is projected far enough out away from the craft, this would result in a radical power reduction to square centimeter of ship surface, negating the ability of the laser to in any way damage the hull of said ship. Abusing magnetic fields into acting like metamaterials has been the subject of many interesting papers already.
It would also solve the issue of being unable to see out of the cockpit.
Forget that, I want a Wookie... Most of the fights you get into are close combat and wookies rule in that range.
Anyway, you speak of the wrong fictional universe, I speak for all Anonymous Cowards when I say that the Star Trek universe is far more interesting... Who wants to deal with the Empire (aka your average over-bloated government) when you could be like beam me up Scottie and shit like that in a commie world of tomorrow, with replicators and off world exploration for fun... I mean, which one is more realistic given our trajectory if we ever get past the lame phase of 3D printers?
AC Ruler #2
Journalists have long imagined themselves piloting X-wing fighters to free the Universe of the Evil Empire. Today, journalists have collectively decided to just fucking give up altogether. Journalists have agreed to basically denounce, forsake, and abandon every last thin thread of reality that they may or may not have been holding onto in order to retain some sort of reason, professionalism, or sanity.
The concept of shields was first introduced in Star Trek: Voyager.
The concept of shields was idealized permanently into mainstream SF culture in "Star Trek: The Original Series".
in order to retain some sort of reason, professionalism, or sanity.
They aren't trying as hard as you think they are.
No, "deflectors" are definately mentioned in A New Hope.
"red leader" specifically-- "bring your rear deflectors on; double front"
source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I look forward to angling them while you make the calculations for the jump to light speed.
You don't really see the shields in Star Wars like you do in Star Trek. In fact, the only evidence of shields is when a laser blast impacts just above the surface of a ship. This could be attributed to shields or mis-alignment in post production.
Ah, yes. The Ionisphere. Been using some of the layers for decades. Also, you might want to check out what Maximum Useable Frequency or MUF means.
This is hardly new, scientists have been playing around with plasma windows & fields for quite some time. They're currently only a few inches in size but could be scaled up to larger dimensions, the problem is power and the pretty powerful magnetic & electrical fields needed to create them.
Have been talking about this for years, I understand they're working with Howard on a prototype but it's a secret so don't tell anyone.
Isn't it "Stabilize your rear deflectors"?
Yes, metamaterials. The problem is that the bandwidth is quite narrow as far as I know, covering a broad spectrum of frequency is far from trivial. Here the rule of thumb is that the structures in meta materials have to be smaller than the wavelength, they're supposed to affect. Photonic crystals also have to be created with a very specific bandgap.
Another problem is that metamaterials are matter, a magnetic field by itself isn't matter and can only change the polarity of electromagnetic waves, which won't do much. Now you could say that you manipulate the matter around with with said magnetic field, make the former "energy field" into an "energy-matter-field", which raises a problem in space, since space isn't known for its high density of matter. Then you'd have to emit matter and keep it in place around your ship. Thank god Star Trek also invented replicators, eh?
So the Disney hype has already started, uh?
Yep: any 'Star Wars' reference is guaranteed to get a few hits, and will likely be planted by a Disney marketing drone, somewhere in the evil empire (formally known as Disneyland).
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
You wouldn't know it from how often ships would suffer a direct hit.
Well, TIE fighters didn't. And remember in A New Hope, the X-wings had all power diverted to front shields and were shot from behind. But in most cases when smaller ships got hit, it was often by capital ships like Star Destroyers. It is reasonable to assume that small, one-man fighters wouldn't be able to power shields strong enough to stop fire from a much larger ship. But even in cases where fighters shot down other fighters, they were never one-hit explosions. Generally they only exploded after being hit repeatedly, so it would indicate that the shields were simply worn down.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Would be easier just to "polarize the hull plating"
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
X-Wings (all rebel fighters, actually) had deflectors. There are any number of scenes that mention them. They weren't generally intended to stand up to capital ship batteries, but rather as protection against enemy fighters.
TIE-Fighters (and bombers) did not have deflectors. They were mass-produced, cheap, crappy ships that didn't even possess hyperdrives (unlike the rebel fighters). However, your typical Star Destroyer could carry and man a *lot* of TIE fighters.
In a way, it's actually kind of funny how X-wings were so weapon-heavy when their primary opposition could probably be one-shot-killed by a single reasonably large infantry weapon. On the other hand, TIE fighters were primarily anti-starfighter, wherein "quantity has a quality all its own" makes a fair bit of sense because they could win a war of attrition with cheap fighters. The job of taking out rebel capital ships was usually left up to the (typically much larger) imperial capitals.
X-wings, Y-wings, and B-wings were designed to be effective against heavy targets (A-wings, which traded some firepower for greater agility, were the preferred rebel anti-fighter fighter), and while each one was individually superior to a TIE-fighter, the empire had a lot more TIEs than the rebellion had fighters of any kind. However, rebel fighters could effectively destroy Star Destroyers, and were also far more survivable in combat.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
TIE fighters had no deflectors; a single shot usually killed them. The quad rapid-fire weapons of an X-wing were serious overkill for them. A volley of shots like the one that leaked a hit through to damage R2-D2 would have destroyed most imperial fighters outright.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Yes, metamaterials. The problem is that the bandwidth is quite narrow as far as I know, covering a broad spectrum of frequency is far from trivial. Here the rule of thumb is that the structures in meta materials have to be smaller than the wavelength, they're supposed to affect. Photonic crystals also have to be created with a very specific bandgap. Another problem is that metamaterials are matter, a magnetic field by itself isn't matter and can only change the polarity of electromagnetic waves, which won't do much. Now you could say that you manipulate the matter around with with said magnetic field, make the former "energy field" into an "energy-matter-field", which raises a problem in space, since space isn't known for its high density of matter. Then you'd have to emit matter and keep it in place around your ship. Thank god Star Trek also invented replicators, eh?
Which is why frequency matters (no pun intended).
The basics of it is that all matter can be repelled using the correct frequency. So by varying the frequency of the magnetic field you can repel various kinds of matter; which of course means that the magnetic shields are not full proof - somethings will be able to get through them if they don't resonate significantly enough with respect to any of the frequencies employed.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Conversely R2-D2 was damaged regardless, which tends to imply that the deflectors weren't really enough to save you when someone got you in their sights - TIE fighters could put enough rounds downrange to overwhelm the shields in any situation where the fighter was genuinely bested.
If you assume that the TIE was more manoeuverable, then the logic of mass producing them the way they were makes a good deal of sense.
Watch the opening scene of the first movie. The stormtroopers boarding Princess Leia's ships are murderously effective. C3P0 wanders across the firefight, and like professional marksmen, the stormtroopers ignore the bumbling droid and shoot around him, targetting the Princess' bodyguards.
Most of the "stormtroopers can't hit" comes from the scenes where they're shooting at Luke, who's got latent force powers stacked on top of regular plot armor.
well, yeah you're wrong.
besides, go play x wing and tie fighter again you noob. the thing is, not all the fighters/bombers in the mythos have the shields.
(though now they just pissed the whole franchise away anyways so everything has everything if it saves jar jar.)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It's a combination of force powers, plot armor -AND- orders to capture him alive for questioning.
For EM radiation you basically have 3 methods:
I think a combination of the first two could be feasible, but effective energy shields alone probably will remain science fiction for the next few decades..
Then again if you think about the difficulty of creating efficient weaponized lasers, you probably won't have to worry about that anyway.
This isn't the first time I've seen someone write that, but I don't understand. What happened, and how does posting correct it?
Considering Obi Wan gives props to the precision of Stormtrooper marksmanship, one has to assume they actually had damn good aim.
True, but at least Luke (and even R2, once he got to a technician) survived *despite* having somebody get a lock on them. The rebels had smaller numbers of pilots; they needed each individual fighter to be as effective and survivable as possible. It also took a second or so of continuous fire for a TIE fighter to kill an X-wing; that doesn't sound like much, but it's that much more time to break lock, have your wingman kill him, etc,
TIEs were cheap in other ways too: no hyperdrive, no heavy weaponry (except the bombers, which were rather un-agile). They were strictly anti-fighter craft. With that said, if you were willing to absorb the losses of putting ships like that up against X-wings and A-wings, they *were* effective.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Not quite: plasma windows exist.
And any protection against lasers is going to be opaque or reflective at the laser frequency, or it isn't going to be very effective.
If you want it to be effective against all frequencies of a Free Electron Laser you need it to be completely opaque or reflective, so you wouldn't be able to see out of it.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
For any long distance space trip, some sort of shield like this will be necessary for larger spaceships just to protect them from dust that is flying through space at 40,000 km/h. The kind of stuff that embeds itself into the windows and tiles of the space station and space shuttle.
And they're just the little things.
Sure, space is really empty and the chances are low that you'll get hit by something but you wouldn't want to meet Murphy when you're in orbit around Titan!
if it can't block a simple kinetic projectile, it's not a "shield".
Most of the 'stormtroopers can't hit shit' hate comes from the insignificant number of Ewoks that they killed. And I understand that hate.
Wait, they couldn't hit the ewoks? I can never tell because of all the fast forwarding I'm doing.
Watch the burial scene. Only one body.
I've been looking into making one myself as a hobby project, to go with my can-crusher/disc-launcher. So far it's gotten as far as generating a very strong magnetic field (Solonoid, and it draws 500A at 12V - I'm powering it off an ultracap bank). Progress stopped there, because the next part of my design requires a supply of at least fifty kilovolts, DC, and that doesn't rectify easily. It'd need specialised, very expensive parts.
The end goal is to flick marbles at it and watch them bounce off.
Lasers? What lasers?
Those things on SW aren't lasers. One, they travel too slow (you can actually see the gaps in the pulses) and, following on from that, you can see them when they're not travelling right towards your remaining eye.
Also, lasers don't go "pyew pyew!" and even if they did you wouldn't be able to hear them through a vacuum.
Finally, parsecs.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
TIEs did have a few advantages. They were spectacularly maneuverable and, unlike rebel vessels, the pilot wore a full, armored spacesuit.
The Empire had the resources and production capacity to just replace small ships in droves, avoiding costly, space and time intensive maintenance and rebuilding (rebel ships are consistently patched up, Y-Wings have that skeletal appearance because the engine covers were too much of a hassle to consistently remove and reinstall).
Actually if we're to believe the TIE Fighter game, TIEs are a big crumple zone with two lasers on them, designed to leave the poor shmuck floating about after exploding all around him for any friendly vessels to just pick up after the battle.
In all fairness, he states this while looking at scorch marks pocking everywhere across something the size of a large building. Old man was probably sarcastic.
This may just be a game thing, but shields did make you a marginally larger target. More importantly (something you'll quickly notice taking on Defenders), hits that downed shields bleed through into hull damage, which stuff like A-Wings really couldn't handle. A competent Interceptor pilot could dance in between volleys like nothing else.
Photons don't interact with each other. So no amount of magnetic field will repel a later or heat from the sun. Also not that some magnetars have magnetic fields so strong that they have energy mass equivalent density of lead.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
later should be laser.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
What the hell are you talking about? That certainly didn't get mentioned in the original trilogy, which is all that counts.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
This is extremely difficult to achieve and would require a lot of energy to work as an effective, impenetrable "shield", which would act much like extremely strong white noise generator.
This would explain why getting the enemy's shield frequency is technically valid. (The shield frequency had to be nonrandom, because otherwise you couldn't fire or transport through it.) A lot of problems go away if you wave some magical energy source wand over them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Those are long-service regulars. Later on in the movie they've had to resort to conscription.
Shit, I can't believe I'm trying to make sense out of star Wars.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Unfortunately that wouldn't work against lasers. By the time you see a laser it's already too late.
I though all the [:alpha:]-Wings were designed to increase merchandising revenue for Lucas.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Your right, they do not use lasers. They are actually particle guns, and fire "bolts" of plasma. That's why you can see them, and why the lightsaber (which is also magnetically shaped plasma) can deflect them. They would cause far more damage than a laser, since the bolts have mass and are still moving at a high percentage of light-speed. The real noise they would make would probably be akin to a sonic boom, since you are accelerating matter far beyond the sound barrier (only applicable inside an atmosphere though) As to the sound "problem"...this has always bothered me too. Scenes from "space" (ie, outside of a ship) should be completely silent. I can't even think of a movie (other than Gravity) that did this correctly. Anything outside an atmosphere would be silent...and on another planet things would sound differently due to the different make-up and density of their atmosphere!
I can't even think of a movie (other than Gravity) that did this correctly.
'2001' did. When HAL went and cut Frank Poole's airline during his EVA, his death was shown completely silently and I think it had a far greater impact as a result.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
It would also solve the issue of being unable to see out of the cockpit.
If you radically diffuse incoming light, that would also radically diffuse other incoming light as well somewhat like trying to see through a thick cloud. This still leaves you effectively blind unless your shield has a known transfer function that can be reversed by a camera and signal processing... but then your opponent may be able to deduct your shield's transfer function and re-focus their energy beams accordingly.
Another problem is what happens to your plasma shield when it gets hit by a high-power laser or other energy beam: unless your plasma shield is at temperatures and pressures approaching those required for nuclear fusion (what happens if external energy causes the shield's plasma to actually reach critical? I imagine it would cause some severe local disruption), a powerful enough laser would be able to locally super-heat the plasma (thin it and knock some material out of the field) and punch through it faster than flow rate can cool the hot-spot down - if you can afford pumping gigawatts into your shields and other systems, your opponents probably have the technology to pump gigawatts in their lasers.
Plasma shields sound nice in theory but in practice, they might not be practical much beyond protection from space junk and relatively crude/low-energy weapons.
Just modify the phase variance, man!
Yes, any other comment has the same effect. /.ers and there is such a thing as writers block. Once I decide I must post while having no content ready I can't think of content. Usually I post once I have something to say.
However there are many
And half of the time I decide to delete it instead of post it, but that's a different beast.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Star Trek used a lot of magic wands during its various series and movies, it's more of a Science Fantasy than Science Fiction. And some of us probably spent too much time thinking about logical consistencies, unless they're writers themselves.
Assuming that there is some magical energy source that can provide enough power and that Star Trek technology works like described in the TV series and movies:
Getting the shield frequency (gap) would be technically valid, against EM radiation weapons with a very narrow spectrum of frequencies, like lasers. In that case you could 'rotate the frequency' forcing your enemy to find the algorithm used for the rotation, if they wanted to continue exploiting your frequency gap.
However besides of Photon Torpedos, EM radiation weapons aren't that common the Star Trek universe. Phasers are particle beams, they fire "nadion particles" or are classified as plasma weapons. Disruptors use sound vibrations, plasma, particles like Nadions, antiprotons, hadrons and generally 'ions'. An energy shield would certainly work against these weapons. The only problem would be that you can't fire with these weapons, unless you take the shields down. Here you could disable the shields at a set frequency for a set pulse width and use this window to fire your weapons.
They're all clones of Jango Fett, but clones degrate over the years and the later generation clones lose the aiming gene.
This space intentionally left blank
And after deflecting all Death Star's arsenal a taliban with an AK47 shots down assault team
Hmm, to me the principle of holding a plasma in place by a magnetic field is sound. You can not block electromagnetic waves with any magnetic or electric fields, though the plasma absorbs all kinds of electromagnetic radiation.
Though both the high magnetic field strengths necessary and the energy loss due to thermal radiation probably make this impractical or impossible to build.
Also the heat radiation from the plasma would toast your spaceship. If it surrounds the whole ship the ship will have no way to reduce its temperature. It will heat up to the temperature of the plasma, turning itself into plasma. So it can not work for a spaceship.
The paper is a one pager of introductory plasma physics. It isn't a serious calculation and it wasn't meant to be. Anyway ...
Their model is as follows. A plasma will reflect all electromagnetic radiation below a certain frequency, determined by its density. The plasma exerts a pressure like a gas and they then assume confinement of the plasma with a magnetic field, balancing the plasma pressure with the 'pressure' that a magnetic field exerts on charged particles. They then say that we can make magnetic fields in the range up to 100 T and working back, estimate the plasma frequency, which turns out to be in the UV. So great, you can deflect lasers into the UV with a modest confining field.
You need to look at some of the other numbers though. .... The other problem is that at such a high density, the collision frequency is very high so that a magnetic field is not very effective at producing confinement. Probably useless in fact.
First, what sort of plasma density do you need to reflect UV ? The answer is something like 10^28 per cubic m. This is enormous - fusion plasmas are about a million times less dense). It's getting close to solid state density eg if a solid has atoms 0.2 nm apart this is 10^29 atoms per cubic m. That is not going to be easy
The other thing to look at is the required plasma temperature. They assume a temperature of 1000 K, Unfortunately, the density of a plasma at 1000 K at thermal equilibrium is extremely low unless the background pressure is huge. So it has to be a lot hotter, in particular, comparable with the ionization energy which is roughly 100 000 K. And really, we need a fully ionized plasma because the magnetic field is not going to confine the neutral gas that we are using to make the plasma so that means we need a 100 000 K plasma. This means that the required magnetic field goes up by a factor of 10.
Would somebody else like to estimate how much power you need to dump into the plasma ?
Robot Jox
(at least thats what it was called in the UK).
Terrible acting. Predictable Storyline. But who cares when there are stop motion robots beating seven bells out of each other with fists lasers rockets etc...
At one point they fly off in to space and continue the brawl in total silence before falling back to earth.
It's in my bad but brilliant cult movie pile (also including biggles: adventures in time, gremloids and the whole tremors franchise).
One more thought before I go off to sleep ...
The spacecraft is the source of the magnetic field so that means the field lines have to terminate on it. Which means hot plasma is continuously blasting into you.
Nerd hat on...
Photon torpedoes are from Star Trek, they are matter/anti-matter missile weapons fired from the ship in a torpedo casing. They have guidance and a warp sustainer engine so if fired at warp they can maintain warp speed for a short period of time. (Phasers are directed energy weapons and thus can't be used at warp)
Proton torpedoes are from Star Wars, they also are a cased missile weapon, much smaller than photon torpedoes, the X-Wing carries 6 of them, 3 per launcher. They are anti-capital ship weapons, unable to target most fighters, they are designed to penetrate thick durasteel hulls and explode inside the ship.
I think this is what inspired the design of the deflectors in the X-Wing games by Lucasarts. Your deflectors take time to charge, and if they're not fully charged you can decide whether to divert most of their power to the front, rear, or evenly depending on the situation.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
are still moving at a high percentage of light-speed.
Except they're not, not even close. In fact, they seem to moving substantially slower than a high powered rifle round. And a gob of plasma in those dimensions would have a "mass" of something like a fraction of a milligram. You could still be delivering a substantial amount of energy through heat though.
As for sounds, if you really want an explantation the only commonly offered one that makes sense is that the ships simulate the sounds of nearby events to give the pilots an intuitive tactical awareness of what's going on around them. You'd absolutely still need a precise radar screen showing nearby fighters, but I see nothing inherently invalid with having the cockpit setup with 10.2 surround and making "pew pew" sound effects when someone is shooting at you.
As a dramatic/horror type scene, yes.. but for an action based space opera, it just wouldn't be remotely as engaging without the pwew pwews added in. They had the exact same discussion when developing the original Star Trek series in the '60s (and probably for TNG again too), and knowing full well there is no sound in space, they nonetheless decided to dub it in anyway after doing some tests. Consider it poetic license.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I never understood why stormtroopers even bothered to wear that "armor", it never did jack squat for them, even against a simple pistol sized blaster.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I always sort of thought that practical shields would work by using plasma to polarize incoming crap and then repelling it with the same containment that was used to make the shield in the first place. Stopping lasers always seemed like the very hardest part, again assuming a ridiculous source of energy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The deflectors were on "double front"-- which suggests that they were weak or nonexistent in back. Why? Because those turbolasers on the surface would have taken them out quicker than the TIEs.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I really want a remake of XvT. That was one of the very best space combat games ever made.
shields, such as those seen protecting spaceships in the Star Wars film series
won't be able to see a thing outside of your starfighter.
These two statements are incompatible.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Angle the deflector shields while I make the calculations for the jump to hyperspace!
Magnetic fields don't have a frequency.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Does something similar apply to Stromtroopers and their weapons as well? After all, all they ever hit with those blasters was Luke's aunt and uncle.
They hit plenty when they aren't actively trying to let people escape. Boarding Leia's ship, on Tattoine, etc. they are effectivel fighters. The point they were missing everybody was when the said rebels were escaping to the Falcon. After which Leia said "That was too easy. They must be tracking us." Which they were. The plan from fairly early was to let them escape from the Death Star and follow them to the rest of the rebels. A plan that would only work, if they lived to escape.
It turns out that rectifying 50 kV is easier for a hobbyist than you may think. I was also once in a situation where I needed to do rectify high voltage. I bought a 120 kV medical X-ray machine on eBay years ago, less a power supply. The seller sent me (free!) a quad of antique KR-9 kenotrons, very large oil-cooled rectifier tubes. I was planning to use them for a bridge rectifier with the 1:800 transformer I found (though X-ray tubes can operate in self-rectifying mode, it's only active during part of the AC cycle). Unfortunately, after an argument my ex broke all but one of the kenotrons (which I'm especially bitter about now, after seeing a single one go on ebay for ~$150). But onto the solution. You can get 12-15 kV solid state rectifiers online in bulk from Chinese manufacturers. I bought 100 of them for around $40, though I don't remember if it was alibaba or another of these sites. The ones I got are good for an amp or two. Make a series and/or parallel network as needed to get to the voltage and current rating you need, making sure to add an extra 30% for peak inverse voltage because the rectifiers won't be perfectly matched, even if they're from the same batch by the manufacturer (if you're really worrying about mismatches, add a resistor divider network in parallel, connected at each node, to even out the voltage across each diode--set the resistance for about 10% idle current--and your use case must be able to take that amount of reverse leakage into account). Now the most important part--avoiding arcing. Take a PVC pipe that will fit your network, and two end caps to which you add screws as end terminals, and epoxy them in place. Connect your rectifier chain to the end-caps, stuffing it into the pipe, then fill the pipe with pure paraffin wax before sealing the second end. You could use transformer or even regular mineral oil (I'd not recommend baby oil, though), but it's likely to leak and that shit's hard to clean up--I use it for the transformer and speak from experience.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Those are long-service regulars. Later on in the movie they've had to resort to conscription.
Shit, I can't believe I'm trying to make sense out of star Wars.
If you really want to make sense of the movie, just realize that the scenes where they can't hit anything is where they are actively trying to let the rebel princess escape so they can get onto a ship with a tracking beacon to lead them to the rest base which they really want. That plan couldn't work if the stormtroopers actually hit and killed everybody. Even Leia said the escape had been too easy. face it, all those stormtroopers had orders to miss.
I'll have to look into that approach. I don't know my current requirements, they would need to be determined experimentally, but my plan is to have a circular (ring) anode and a spherical cathode in the middle, with the electrons thus forced to take a spiral path - much like in a magnatron, except without the vacuum.
I did determine that it's very hard to strike an arc in a strong magnetic field.
No, but they can be made to change direction frequently, as the core in any transformer may demonstrate... Not sure entirely what tempoaralbeing was driving at though...
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
Your method is textbook and certainly will work(even if you use SCRs but triggering them becomes... interesting...) , but I have a very puzzling question... What do you need a 120kV medical X-Ray machine for?
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
Star Wars didn't even remotely do this first... in fact, it wasn't even the first in major media, seeing as how this was the whole point of the "deflector dish" in Star Trek.
Also, they've "proven" or "demonstrated" precisely nothing, as they have tested - and derived results from - precisely nothing.
Finally, the feasibility of this was demonstrated long ago by an "odd" occurrence in a 3M plant making polypropylene film, not to mention the high-strength electro-magnetic fields (or "bottles") currently in use in experimental fusion reactors.
Just because I noticed that birds and other creatures can fly and write about it in a paper, does not mean that constitutes demonstration or proof of an assertion that human-powered flight is feasible, nor does it demonstrate the actual principle in any useful way.
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
Reminds me of that awesome game TIE Fighter. Yeah, TIE fighters were wimpy little death traps, and I'd much rather pilot an A-wing. But rise high enough in rank, and maybe you can pilot a TIE advanced, which pretty much blows away anything the rebels can offer.
Once you post the moderation buttons are removed.
Right. I get it now. I know the rules, but I didn't put 2 and 2 together.
I know you don't do anything so twentietch-century as "reading novels", but certainly Doc Smith had force fields in the Skylark of Space, published 1928.
mark
If the adversary were clever enough, they would pulse their weapons at the same frequency to bypass your shields.
Hmm, wasn't there something about modulating weapon frequencies and shield frequencies in Star Trek?
The quad lasers are there to increase hit probability. They are spaced too far apart for all of them to hit a TIE fighter.
Playing devil's advocate...
2001 had music over top of space scenes. You can't hear music in space, never mind Dolby surround sound, so this was wrong. I think there was also music playing on ancient Earth, which is before music was invented.
I've also seen subtitled versions of 2001 (and lots of movies praised for their realism). This is wrong. When people speak in real life, glowing words don't magically appear beneath them.
One can argue that these are cinematic conventions that improve people's enjoyment. The music has emotional impact, and the subtitles make it easier to understand what is happening (especially with foreign languages). But then why can't things like space sound effects (which add impact) and visible lasers (which make it easier to see what is happening) also be considered cinematic conventions? It all seems a bit arbitrary to me.
Magnetic fields don't have a frequency.
No but Electro-Magnetic fields do, and they are just as useful as non-elctro-magnetic fields for this topic.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Electro-Magnetic fields have no frequncy either.
The only thing with a frequency is the switch that activates the field and deactivates it, or reverses it if necessary/wanted. You kniw every DC current motor has a static same polarity _electro magnetic_ field (in addition to the fields of its permanent magnets).
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yes, it works for particles, when you have sufficient energy. Technically a plasma can ionize it, and then deflect/repel it along an magnetic field, much like a particle accelerator does. Yet the same can be accomplished by EM radiation alone (ionizing radiation), which could/would subsequently create said plasma. Although I'm not sure what you could to against subatomic particles that have no charge, like neutrons.
The difficulty would not only be in stopping lasers, it's stopping any kinds of EM radiation.
For example they use their main deflector shield to protect the ship from particles at superluminal velocities, implying that these particles can penetrate the warp bubble, that bends space, around the ship.
But how does it protect them from EM radiation? Can EM radiation penetrate the warp bubble? From the series we know that you can see something from the inside of the ship, implying that EM radiation is well able to penetrate the bubble and reach the ship.
As we know from wave phenomenons like the Doppler effect, every form of EM radiation in line of the travel direction would become hard radiation (gamma rays) at high speeds, being able to penetrate thick layers of mass. Even impulse speeds could reach 4/5 c, according to VOY.So what do you do against incoming light with your shields? Remember that you can't adapt your shield to the incoming frequency before it even hits you.
Certainly with an incredible source of energy such shields might be possible, without any frequency gap, after all they couldn't use weapons and transporters during warp. But it all becomes fantastic and magical and less scientific at this point. With such kinds of energy you probably could use 'artificial wormholes' for travel.
Huh??? So visible light of various colors, radio, X-rays, infrared, microwaves, gamma rays, ultraviolet light: these are not electromagnetic fields of varying frequencies (yes, and photons at the same time)? All of physics since Maxwell has been a hoax?
No they are not electromagnetic fields. They are electromagnetic _waves_ or photons, however you look at them. In fact the term electromagnetic field is not really used, as the field looks the same like from a permanent magnet, you can not distinguish a magnetic field generated by electricity from one generated by a permanent magnet.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
http://www.physics.buffalo.edu...
Your point exactly?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
How about dangling a miniature black hole from a stick in front of your ship? Light can't escape it!! (disclaimer: Don't let the rope break while flying)
Star Trek used a lot of magic wands during its various series and movies, it's more of a Science Fantasy than Science Fiction. And some of us probably spent too much time thinking about logical consistencies, unless they're writers themselves. ...
We live some of the science fiction "magic wands" that I read about as a boy.
They had electric cars back in the 1800's, but the power source was always the problem. The battery pack in a Tesla is pure science fiction to me!
I actually read about pocket phones with world-wide connection, in a science fiction story once. And the kids at school scoffed at the idea!
And, the rate of advance is accellerating.
... Also, lasers don't go "pyew pyew!" and even if they did you wouldn't be able to hear them through a vacuum.
The plasma cannon actually do cause sound.
The plasma containment fields surrounding the "projectile" are quite intense. They have effects out some distance, and when the traces of those fields impact your hull that causes it to vibrate. This causes sound inside the air-filled compartments.
Remember: theory only works in theory. In practice things are a lot more complicated!
It could easily be a random frequency, as long as your random number generator for the shields and for the transporters/weapons use the same seed. It's no different to how 2-factor authentication works.
That scene was in A New Hope, when they are being 'let' escape from the Death "You think that was easy?" Star. In The Empire Strikes Back they hide in the asteroid inhabited by the space worm, and upon eviction, the "one more hit on the rear deflectors" causes them to put all power to the front deflectors and go at the star destroyer face on, buzz the tower and hide on the back of it waiting for them to dump their trash.
I just recently watched the movies for May 4th, so all this is fresh in my mind.
And because in A New Hope, they were ordered to let the team escape, and in Empire Strikes Back, the plan was to lure Luke into the freezing chamber. It doesn't, however, explain how they failed to hit any of them as they boarded the Millennium Falcon to escape Cloud City.
Yes, the rate of advance is accelerating, fusion is only 40 years away, like it was 40 years ago. Although, this problem could be tackled.
Here we are talking about an antimatter reactor, in an universe where antimatter has to be 'created' at extremely high energy expenses and has to be contained in strong magnetic fields, which require high electrical currents, since there is no 'material' container for antimatter other than antimatter. A reactor that is so powerful that its energy can bend space itself, with the virtual mass of an entire star. A reactor that is very hard to control, therefore they had to invent "Dilithium", an element with magical properties, while being somewhat impervious to antimatter itself.
These things are preposterous, while other stuff from Star Trek is not. You might enjoy this one.
To make a tabletop CT scanner. I was inspired by commercial ones for lab/industry use that rely on cone-beam tomography, and a turntable to rotate the sample instead of spinning the X-ray source around it. It's actually pretty simple to do with a stepper motor, scintillation screen (you can just rip out the intensifier from an X-ray cassette), a good camera, and, of course, an X-ray source with a sufficiently small focus.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."